| |
| YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more | |
| Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, | |
| I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude | |
| And with forced fingers rude | |
| Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year, | 5 |
| Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, | |
| Compels me to disturb your season due; | |
| For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, | |
| Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. | |
| Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew | 10 |
| Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. | |
| He must not float upon his watery bier | |
| Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, | |
| Without the meed of some melodious tear. | |
| Begin then, sisters of the sacred well, | 15 |
| That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring, | |
| Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. | |
| Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse; | |
| So may some gentle muse | |
| With lucky words favor my destined urn, | 20 |
| And as he passes turn, | |
| And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud; | |
| For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, | |
| Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill. | |
| Together both, ere the high lawns appeared | 25 |
| Under the opening eyelids of the morn, | |
| We drove a-field, and both together heard | |
| What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, | |
| Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, | |
| Oft till the star that rose at evening bright | 30 |
| Toward heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel. | |
| Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, | |
| Tempered to the oaten flute; | |
| Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven heel | |
| From the glad song would not be absent long, | 35 |
| And old Damætas loved to hear our song. | |
| But, oh, the heavy change, now thou art gone— | |
| Now thou art gone, and never must return! | |
| Thee, shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves, | |
| With wild thyme and the gadding vine o’ergrown, | 40 |
| And all their echoes, mourn; | |
| The willows, and the hazel copses green, | |
| Shall now no more be seen, | |
| Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. | |
| As killing as the canker to the rose, | 45 |
| Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, | |
| Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, | |
| When first the white-thorn blows; | |
| Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear. | |
| Where were ye, nymphs, when the remorseless deep | 50 |
| Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas? | |
| For neither were ye playing on the steep, | |
| Where your old bards, the famous druids, lie, | |
| Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, | |
| Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream— | 55 |
| Ay me! I fondly dream, | |
| Had ye been there; for what could that have done? | |
| What could the muse herself that Orpheus bore, | |
| The muse herself for her enchanting son, | |
| Whom universal nature did lament, | 60 |
| When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, | |
| His gory visage down the stream was sent, | |
| Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? | |
| Alas! what boots it with incessant care | |
| To tend the homely, slighted shepherd’s trade, | 65 |
| And strictly meditate the thankless muse? | |
| Were it not better done, as others use, | |
| To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, | |
| Or with the tangles of Neæra’s hair? | |
| Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise | 70 |
| (That last infirmity of noble minds) | |
| To scorn delights, and live laborious days; | |
| But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, | |
| And think to burst out into sudden blaze, | |
| Comes the blind fury with the abhorred shears, | 75 |
| And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise, | |
| Phœbus replied, and touched my trembling ears; | |
| Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, | |
| Nor in the glistering foil | |
| Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies; | 80 |
| But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes | |
| And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; | |
| As he pronounces lastly on each deed, | |
| Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed. | |
| O fountain Arethuse, and thou honored flood, | 85 |
| Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds, | |
| That strain I heard was of a higher mood; | |
| But now my oat proceeds, | |
| And listens to the herald of the sea | |
| That came in Neptune’s plea; | 90 |
| He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, | |
| What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain? | |
| And questioned every gust of rugged winds | |
| That blows from off each beakèd promontory; | |
| They knew not of his story; | 95 |
| And sage Hippotades their answer brings, | |
| That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed; | |
| The air was calm, and on the level brine | |
| Sleek Panopè with all her sisters played. | |
| It was that fatal and perfidious bark, | 100 |
| Built in th’ eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, | |
| That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. | |
| Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, | |
| His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, | |
| Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge, | 105 |
| Like to that sanguine flower, inscribed with woe. | |
| Ah! who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge? | |
| Last came, and last did go, | |
| The pilot of the Galilean Lake; | |
| Two massy keys he bore of metals twain | 110 |
| (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain); | |
| He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: | |
| How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, | |
| Enow of such as for their bellies’ sake | |
| Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold? | 115 |
| Of other care they little reckoning make, | |
| Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast, | |
| And shove away the worthy bidden guest; | |
| Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold | |
| A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least | 120 |
| That to the faithful herdsman’s art belongs! | |
| What recks it them? what need they? they are sped; | |
| And when they list, their lean and flashy songs | |
| Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; | |
| The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, | 125 |
| But, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw, | |
| Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; | |
| Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw | |
| Daily devours apace, and nothing said; | |
| But that two-handed engine at the door, | 130 |
| Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more. | |
| Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past, | |
| That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian muse, | |
| And call the vales, and bid them hither cast | |
| Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues. | 135 |
| Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use | |
| Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, | |
| On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks, | |
| Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, | |
| That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, | 140 |
| And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. | |
| Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, | |
| The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, | |
| The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, | |
| The glowing violet, | 145 |
| The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, | |
| With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, | |
| And every flower that sad embroidery wears. | |
| Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, | |
| And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, | 150 |
| To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies, | |
| For so to interpose a little ease, | |
| Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. | |
| Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas | |
| Wash far away where’er thy bones are hurled, | 155 |
| Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, | |
| Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide | |
| Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world; | |
| Or whether thou to our moist vows denied, | |
| Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old, | 160 |
| Where the great vision of the guarded mount | |
| Looks towards Namancos and Bayona’s hold; | |
| Look homeward angel now, and melt with ruth! | |
| And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth! | |
| Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more! | 165 |
| For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, | |
| Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. | |
| So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, | |
| And yet anon repairs his drooping head, | |
| And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore | 170 |
| Flames in the forehead of the morning sky; | |
| So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, | |
| Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves, | |
| Where, other groves and other streams along, | |
| With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, | 175 |
| And hears the unexpressive nuptial song, | |
| In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. | |
| There entertain him all the saints above, | |
| In solemn troops and sweet societies, | |
| That sing, and singing in their glory move, | 180 |
| And wipe the tears forever from his eyes. | |
| Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more; | |
| Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore, | |
| In thy large recompense, and shalt be good | |
| To all that wander in that perilous flood. | 185 |
| Thus sang the uncouth swain to th’ oaks and rills, | |
| While the still morn went out with sandals gray; | |
| He touched the tender stops of various quills, | |
| With eager thought warbling his Doric lay. | |
| And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, | 190 |
| And now was dropt into the western bay; | |
| At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue: | |
| To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new. | |
| |
